EUTCo’s production of ‘After The End’ is showing at 7pm on Wednesday 27th – Thursday 28th November at Cellar Door. Tickets are £5 for EUTCo members and £6 for non-members, including a free drink at Cellar Door. Email the show’s producer Jessica Burrage (jlb230@exeter.ac.uk) to book tickets.
A bomb explodes. You wake up underground, in the dark. You don’t know what to think, what to do, how to react. No, I’m not describing you passing out in Cellar Door as the bass drops, but rather, the premise of Dennis Kelly’s gripping play After The End on in Exeter this week. For two nights only, Cellar Door, the Quay’s go-to venue for drum and bass nights, will be transformed into a nuclear fallout shelter as Exeter University’s Theatre Company (EUTCo) stage their second play of the term there.
Dennis Kelly’s After The End explores how human emotions are pushed to extremity as his two characters – Mark and Louise – are entrapped within a bomb shelter with only each other for company. It is Mark’s shelter: he has rescued Louise and prepared everything he thinks they will need to survive; tinned chilli, Dungeons and Dragons and a knife. They both must wait until it’s safe to go outside. Yet, it soon becomes apparent that the real danger lies inside the shelter. Mark and Louise have survived the bomb, but will they survive each other?
The dark humour and electrifying tension of Kelly’s script is what attracted co-directors Joanna Ward and Matthew Holmquist to the play. In an interview, Matthew and Joanna commented on the challenges it presents to the conventions of love, hate and human relationships. They also highlighted how lucky they feel to have secured Cellar Door as the play’s venue: “Cellar Door is great for the underground environment of this play. We want the audience to feel like they are entering the world of After The End. It’s such an intimate space, we’re trying to create an intense atmosphere that the audience will hopefully thrive off”.
With only a two-person cast, the play certainly demands a lot of its actors. Armonie Melville and Freddie Thorp – playing the parts of Louise and Mark respectively – describe the play’s intensity as “enjoyably challenging”. With many lines and a number of intimate, violent scenes, they both emphasised the essentiality of “trust and a strong on-stage chemistry”: something they hope will come across in their performances.
Sarah Gough
To watch the ‘After The End’ trailer as well as interviews with the actors and directors, visit the Facebook event here. For updates on the show, follow @AfterTheEnd13 on Twitter.
The show contains scenes of a violent and sexual nature.
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